Another form of LA transport today, the Subway. Only $1.50 (£1) each for a 30 minute ride as well. Again, full of odd balls. And Americans just aren't bothered who is listening to their conversations.

We got off at Union Station to go visit Olvera Street. It's a little Mexican Street with Market stalls and shops, plus restaurants and small places selling lovely looking Mexican food. There's also the oldest building in LA, built in 1818. It's a really nice little place and there was a couple of bands walking around playing Mexican music.

From there we took a walk down to Little Tokyo. We had a wander around the small, modern, tranquil Japanese outdoor shopping area and had a look at a couple of the older buildings, then made our way down to China Town. But then decided not to bother as we've seen loads of them in and out of China.

The other thing we saw was a lot of homeless people. There's just so many of them. And there's so many that seem to have mental problems - talking to themselves or having a full blown conversation with everyone walking past.

Finally, today is the day we pick up our hire car! We can't wait to have that bit of freedom with the car. We had to pick it up from Los Angeles Airport, so took the FlyAway bus for $7 (£4.50) each to the airport.
Typically, there was a problem with our booking at Alamo, but after about 20 minutes we were sorted. I tried to complain to get an upgrade and made up a story about having problems last time we hired a car through them, but she said it was the brokers fault rather than theirs. No success.

We went outside and was greeted by another guy. He was a cool dude who, again, reminded me of a character from a movie. He was asking where I was from etc and we were talking, then I asked where the economy cars were. He pointed to a row of crap looking cars and I just said haven't you got any cool economy cars. He laughed and said no, so which car do you want. He pointed to a few and I said no, then he took me two classes up to a nice looking White Dodge Calibre. Sorted, we got upgraded! Much nice car than we were supposed to get!

Our first stop was to Best Buy to get a Sat Nav. The car place wanted to charge $310 (£200) to hire one for 30 days! So we bought one for £95.
It took a bit of getting used to the driving and the Sat Nav. The motorways are huge and the Sat Navs aren't always clear.

Therese did some research and found out about a place called The Original Farmer's Market. It's not a 'Farmer's' Market now, but it's set out like a Market and there's loads of nice food stalls with a heated outdoor seating area, and there's loads of little places selling sweets and cakes etc. We went to Gumbo's and Therese got Jambalaya and I went to a Brazilian Churrasco, which is a Brazilian BBQ. It was nice food, not fantastic though. The best bit was what we got from the sweet place - a cheesecake apple! It was a huge apple covered in caramel, yoghurt and cheesecake biscuit. Very Nice!

Whilst munching on the apple, we walked outside towards The Grove. What a nice area. There's an old style tram that runs through from the Market to The Grove which is this really nice shopping street. It's kind of old looking but all brand new, and they have a cinema that has those old looking signs with the movie list on like you see in films. And it had just got dark so it was really nicely lit up with old looking street lamps. They had a fountain that puts on a bit of a show and just behind that there's a small pond and stream with a little bridge running over it. They were playing all those old style songs by Michael Buble too. It's such a nice place with a great atmosphere.

There's some decent shops there as well, but not that many. Most importantly, they have Abercrombie & Fitch. It's the same brand as Hollister. We weren't going to go in, but thought we'd just have a quick browse....
Well, there were some bargains that were too good to miss. I got a decent thick jacket for the freezing cold weather here. It was supposed to be $140 and I got it for $40 (£30) in the sale.
I was sucked into the Apple Store again too...

We had a really good day today and it's so much better to have our own car now.